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HANOI (Reuters): US chip giant Nvidia will discuss cooperation deals on semiconductors with Vietnamese tech companies and authorities in a meeting on Monday in Hanoi, an invitation letter to participants seen by Reuters showed.
The South-East Asian country, which is home to large chip assembling factories including Intel's biggest globally, is trying to expand into chip designing and possibly chip-making as trade tensions between the United States and China create opportunities for Vietnam in the strategic industry.
Jensen Huang, president and chief executive of Nvidia, will on Monday meet representatives from the Vietnamese government and Vietnamese companies to discuss ways "to boost the semiconductor industry" in Vietnam and "Nvidia's potential partnership with Vietnamese tech firms," the invitation letter to the private event said.
An industry source familiar with the preparations of the meeting said Nvidia was expected to agree on a tech transfer deal with at least one Vietnamese company.
The person declined to be named because they were not allowed to speak publicly on the issue.
FPT, Vingroup, the parent company of electric vehicles maker VinFast and state-owned Viettel said they would attend the meeting on Monday with Nvidia but declined to comment about any possible deal.
The Vietnamese investment ministry, which will host the event, did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Nvidia, which makes AI chips and graphics processing units, has already partnered with Vietnam's leading tech companies to deploy AI in the cloud, automotive and healthcare industries, a document published by the White House in September showed when Washington upgraded diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
(Reporting Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; editing by Barbara Lewis) - Reuters
